Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Alienation

This afternoon I got to spend a little bit of time with a seven year old boy, walking him from the school bus to a friends house.

As we walked, I told him that my daughter was going to be taking karate lessons from his mother, and I asked if I should be worried that she would use this new skill to pummel me. He said no, because karate was only used to beat up bad guys. After a moment, he added "And aliens". I asked him if there were any around, and he nodded. There are some living in his attic, and in the attic of his friend's house, too. I said that must be scary, and he said that it wasn't. His father was smart, he said -- he locks the attic door at night so that they can't get out. Aliens don't like to come out during the day. I then asked if he'd ever seen them, and he said that he had, which I thought was a problem - what if they tried to use ray guns on you - to which he replied that they didn't use ray guns any more, they used gas. And rocks.

Amazing, the things you learn.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Maybe his family is hiding illegal aliens ;-)

Cerulean Bill said...

Entirely possible. He said that his friend had the same problem. Perhaps there's an underground railway -- which, when I found out what it really was, bitterly disappointed me; I liked the image of a hidden train -- running through this neighborhood. All aboard!